Volume 2, Chapter 10 – You’re Trying to Build a Human Here?

Favorability with NPC Anran: -25.

To be precise, this was the kind of favorability score that made an NPC dislike you.

Zhou Jieyu tried to get the favorability back into positive territory.

So she took out another 5 coins.

If 1 Bilu could increase favorability by 5 points, then 5 Bilu should mean…

“Favorability +5.”

Pfft…

Are you freaking kidding me?

Zhou Jieyu refused to believe it, so she gave Anran another 5 Bilu. Anran accepted them all with perfect politeness.

“Favorability +5.”

What kind of bizarre calculation was this? Could favorability really go up or down entirely depending on the NPC’s mood?

Zhou Jieyu was completely lost now. In truth, as long as no one could see through Anran’s true nature, no one would ever be able to understand what was going on here.

Seeing Zhou Jieyu fall into confusion, Anran immediately grew a little anxious. Why had she stopped giving money?

Could it be that the carrot she had dangled was too small?

After thinking it over, Zhou Jieyu decided that she only had 31 Bilu on her right now. She couldn’t keep spending wildly. If she didn’t eat, she’d die, so she had to be more frugal.

Twinmoon City was huge. There had to be plenty of quests to uncover. There was no point fixating on a single lead. She should go look elsewhere for opportunities.

Zhou Jieyu decided to try another route. She turned to leave, but suddenly received another game prompt: “Favorability +15. Current favorability: 0.”

“…”

Zhou Jieyu wanted to speak, stopped, wanted to speak again, stopped again…

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For fuck’s sake!

I must be playing a fake game and dealing with a fake NPC!

So was the favorability prompt delayed, or was there something wrong with the favorability system?

In the end, Zhou Jieyu turned back around.

The moment she saw Anran again, she was stunned all over again.

Four hats!

NPC Anran now had four hats above her head!

What kind of all-powerful NPC was this?

But why was there one more hat?

Zhou Jieyu’s eyes widened. The extra hat looked like a book, and she instantly understood.

A profession mentor!

The kind of “life mentor” who could open the door to a whole new world for players and guide them into it.

Although the official game information had said that every profession could be unlocked in many ways, and didn’t have to be obtained through a profession mentor, it was obvious that learning a profession from a mentor was the easiest and most common method.

Up to now, Zhou Jieyu was still a blank-slate player. Her longing for a new profession was an upgraded version of “want it, want it, want it even more.”

At last, she’d managed to lure her back. Anran let out a sigh of relief. It looked like she still couldn’t fleece players too hard at this stage.

Players were poor right now, even poorer than she was.

Their advantage was that they had numbers and extra lives. Even if they killed themselves messing around, they could start all over again. They had infinite possibilities. As soon as they stepped out of the newbie village, they would quickly turn into “fat sheep”, though there were definitely also some fierce “badasses” and some scrawny little “baa-baa sheep” mixed in.

So Anran opened the lid of her tempting box just a crack again, and Zhou Jieyu took the bait as expected.

Zhou Jieyu found that there were a total of four professions on the class-change list.

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From top to bottom, they were the life-type secondary profession “Pastry Maker”, followed by “Scout”, “Engineer”, and “Mechanic”.

The favorability required to unlock “Pastry Maker” was exactly 0, while the three professions after it required 10, 15, and 15 respectively.

Trying to swallow too much at once would only leave you unable to chew, but having more professions attached to you wasn’t necessarily a bad thing either, as long as you knew what to prioritize.

So Zhou Jieyu’s attitude was: I want them all!

Children make choices. Adults take everything.

Zhou Jieyu considered herself a mature woman blessed with both beauty and wisdom!

“Do you want to unlock the profession [Pastry Maker]?”

Zhou Jieyu chose “Yes.”

“Unlocking the profession [Pastry Maker] requires 30 Bilu. Do you wish to pay?”

“Uh…”

Being stuck right at this threshold made Zhou Jieyu rather embarrassed. She only had 31 Bilu on her. It was nowhere near enough.

After hesitating again and again, Zhou Jieyu said seriously to Anran, “I’ll come back tomorrow.”

Then she ran off.

Wait until I make money and come back to support you…

No, wait, come back to change class.

Watching Zhou Jieyu leave, Anran quickly took out the 11 coins she had just received and lined them up on the table.

The bright silver coins glittered in the sunlight, and the gleam made Anran’s eyes seem even more dazzling.

Hehe…

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She happily put the money away into her pocket.

Although she only had 11 Bilu right now, as long as she handled things properly, more and more zeros would be added to that number.

“How much money did you scam out of people?”

At that moment, the shop owner Colin asked as he opened the door.

“…”

Anran broke out in a cold sweat. How could this be called scamming? It was clearly a transaction.

“This is a transaction, a transaction.”

“I don’t care whether you call it a transaction or a scam. Anyway, you’re free now, right? If you’re free, come keep helping me. There’s a lot to do today. While you’re at it, go ahead and close the shop too,” Colin said.

“Quest issued: [Colin’s Mechanical Engineering], Stage 5. Do you accept?”

Quest reward: 1000 experience points.

Quest repeatability: Unique.

1000?

Let’s go!

…

Clatter!

Creak!

Anran pulled down the repair shop’s rolling shutter, then turned and pushed open the door leading to the workshop.

Colin stood in the corner, looking somewhat tired, but beneath that weary face there seemed to be some unspent emotion waiting to burst out.

It was said that researchers looked exactly like this when they were on the verge of a breakthrough.

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What exactly was Colin making?

Having only seen a few drawings, Anran was still completely baffled.

“Take a look at this first. There’s a lot to do today, and you absolutely have to stay focused.” Colin handed over several more drawings.

Anran took the drawings and leafed through them as usual.

This time, there were four sheets in total.

And they were consecutive.

From [???? (56/79)] to [???? (59/79)].

There were still 20 more drawings to go.

Colin sat quietly nearby.

The first drawing showed some kind of connecting structure. It seemed to be meant to link together the columns they’d made earlier.

The second drawing showed a circuit she couldn’t really make sense of. It looked like part of some kind of power device.

The third drawing showed an even smaller connecting structure.

The fourth drawing showed a pair of spherical objects. Round, mostly milky white, with the front portion clear and crystalline.

This thing…

The more Anran looked at it, the more familiar it seemed. Wasn’t this just a pair of eyeballs?

Eyeballs.

With that in mind, Anran thought back to the things Colin had made earlier, those strange cylinders, those strange little components, and the connecting structures drawn on the current blueprints.

With a grave expression, Anran put down the drawings in her hand, turned to Colin, who was deep in thought, and said, “Boss, are you trying to build a human here?”